Media School marks one year in Franklin Hall

The Media School moved into Franklin Hall on July 25, 2016. (Gena Asher | The Media School)

One year has passed since The Media School made its home in Franklin Hall, then a 109-year-old building in the Old Crescent that had just completed a $21 million renovation.

Since then, a fall, spring and summer semester have come and gone. Franklin Hall hosted classes, events and visitors from all over the world. Students studied, created media and graduated.

Here are some of the highlights.

July 25, 2016: The move begins. Furniture and equipment is packed up from the Radio and Television Building, Ernie Pyle Hall and the Classroom Office Building and unloaded at Franklin Hall.

Jim Kelly, Tom French and Bonnie Layton team teach three courses that combined are known as ” Words & Pictures.” The class hosted members of the Tampa Bay Times team that won a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for “Failure Factories.” That’s Nathaniel Lash, Dirk Shadd, Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner in Franklin Hall 114. (Jim Kelly | The Media School)

Aug. 22, 2016: The Media School holds its first day of classes in Franklin Hall.

Sept. 15, 2016: Academic advisors move to Franklin Hall. The five staff members started the year in the Radio and Television Building because water issues in the advising suite necessitated further renovation.

Sept. 27, 2016: IU formally rededicates Franklin Hall as the home of The Media School. President Michael McRobbie, members of the IU Board of Trustees and other campus dignitaries participate in the ceremony. Fox broadcaster Joe Buck, who attended IU in the late ’80s and early ’90s, spoke at the ceremony and received an honorary doctorate.

Oct. 9, 2016: The IU Cinema screens a trio of films chosen by McRobbie in honor of The Media School’s move to Franklin Hall: A Year of Living Dangerously, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum and Z.

Nov. 4, 2016: The Media School hosts its annual Media Career Day in Franklin Hall for the first time. More than 25 alumni present career advice in nine panel discussions, networking sessions and one-on-one chats with students.

Tori team members Josh Smith, left, and Joseph Adams, right, present their game to a group of panelists for constructive criticism and a chance to move forward in the game design program. (Kristen Braselton | The Media School)

Dec. 9, 2016: Game designers from across the country and from Canada travel to Franklin Hall to serve as judges for Game Workshop II’s live game pitch competition in the commons. Student teams display game prototypes on the commons screen, and judges make the final call on which games will move on to production and which won’t.

Dec. 16, 2016: December graduates become the first students to walk across the stage in Franklin Hall for The Media School’s commencement celebration.

January 2017: The Media School outfits room 052 with high-end gaming and development PCs, the fastest machines in any lab on campus. The upgrade includes 10 HTC VIVE virtual reality kits.

Global Game Jame participants from IU and the area formed teams to work on games with the same theme: waves. (Michael Williams | The Media School)

Jan. 20, 2017: Franklin Hall serves as one of 600 local hosts for the Global Game Jam. Forty-four game designers — both students and local residents — gather in the game design lab to create games based on a common theme: waves.

Jan. 31, 2017: The Media School renames its state-of-the-art television control room the Ed Spray Control Room in honor of alumnus Ed Spray, BS’63, who made a donation to The Media School’s Franklin Hall Fund. Spray is the former president of Scripps Networks.

Olivia Holloway, a graduate student in the Spanish and Portuguese department, demonstrates the motion capture system in the Beckley Studio. (Amanda Pittman | The Media School)

Feb. 2, 2017: The Media School installs a motion capture system in The Beckley Studio. The technology allows student filmmakers and game designers to animate digital character models based on recorded actions of human actors.

Sierra Hignite of IUSTV updates her Snapchat to inform her followers about the Oscar event held in the Franklin Hall commons. (Emma Knutson | The Media School)

Feb. 26, 2017: The Media School’s Graduate Student Association rolls out a red carpet to host Oscar night. Panelists discuss everything from predicted winners to #OscarsSoWhite — broadcast on Facebook Live in the Beckley Studio — and guests watch the event live on the commons screen.

April 7, 2017: Franklin Hall is the site of The Media School’s first Graduate Student Conference, themed “Finding Common Ground.”

Students, faculty and staff from the Punjabi film project gather for a photo. (The Media School)

May 14, 2017: Thirty young filmmakers from India and Pakistan spend three weeks in Franklin Hall creating films on Southern Indiana for Beyond Borders: A Workshop on Filmmaking Across the Punjab Region. The project is a collaboration between The Media School and IU’s Office of International Development.